


Whisk Me Away

by F1DEL1US



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Connor still plays for the Leafs, Full of corn-iness, M/M, Stickhandling101
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-15 00:46:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14780450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/F1DEL1US/pseuds/F1DEL1US
Summary: “You know...the eggs...they were together and then we separated them and now they’re together again.”“I mean...what I mean is...” he stutters, “We’re eggs.”





	Whisk Me Away

**Author's Note:**

> Don't look at anything too closely because none of it will make sense. When you read through it and get to the part that makes you groan out loud, you'll know the dialogue that inspired this fic. 
> 
> Thanks to M, as always, for being right there with me and my bad decisions.

Connor has a problem. Well, Connor has many problems but the particular one he’s referring to right now is the fact that he has a bit of a sweet tooth he can’t control. Normally, this wouldn’t be so much a problem as an inconvenience, but as an NHL player, treating everyday like a cheat day is frowned upon, to put it lightly. 

 

But needs must. 

 

He happens upon a new pastry store on his early morning run, and he tells himself it’s not the name that catches his attention, but he’s also a liar. 

 

When he walks in, he sees a man behind the counter who decidedly does not look like who he hoped he’d find and tries to tamp down the disappointment he feels. He hadn’t thought about Freddie in a long time. Well, that isn’t entirely true. He had consciously tried to  _ not _ think about Freddie because it wouldn’t do him any good anyway. They were young. It was summer love. And unlike in the movies, Connor’s sure Freddie wasn’t somewhere pining away for him. 

 

Not that  _ he _ was pining of course. Not at all. 

 

He tries to tell himself that it was the suddenness of the reminder, and the surprise of finding a bakery named after Freddie that had caught him off guard. 

 

“Hello there, what can I help you with today?” the man behind the counter, Mac his name tag reads, asks. 

 

“Um...could I get a large coffee? Black, no sugar. And I’ll take a blueberry muffin as well,” Connor says quickly taking a look at the menu so he doesn’t look as lost as he feels. 

 

“Of cou....” Mac’s about to say but is interrupted by someone calling for him from the kitchen. “Sorry, one second.”

 

Connor smiles, telling him not to worry about it and starts looking at the display case. He’s thinking that this could be dangerous, everything looks so delicious that if he had his way he’d probably end up clearing out the entirety of it, when he hears, “Sorry about that. Needed Mac to look at something. I’ll get started on the co...Connor?”

 

Connor looks up and feels his eyes go wide, because he might have come into the store because he had seen Frederik’s Pastries on the storefront but not even in his wildest dreams could he have imagined that he would  _ actually _ see Freddie, standing in front of him.

 

“Freddie,” Connor say and feels himself flush. He hadn’t meant to sound so breathy. 

 

“How are you?” Freddie asks, breaking into a smile, and Connor feels himself returning it without conscious thought. 

 

The thing is, Connor feels great and he doesn’t want to think too deeply about how that might be more true now, after seeing Freddie, than it was a moment ago. 

 

\-----

 

“So let me get this straight, you had a wild summer fling and then you just...what, left?” Mitch asks, cuddled up next to Auston because he had never learned how to sit like a normal person, and no that wasn’t his jealousy talking, thank you very much. 

 

“You make me sound like some kind of an asshole,” Connor mutters, focusing on taking out Auston’s character for want of something to do. “We were young. We just...we thought it might be best to end it before we went our own ways.”

 

“Yeah, but you like him,” Mitch says, confusion clear in his voice, as if it was just that simple. And Connor genuinely believes, to Mitch, it is. He envies his friend’s easy going nature so damn much sometimes. 

 

“It’s been  _ eight years _ ,” Connor says in lieu of answering because what does one even say to that? 

 

“Well...are you going back?” Mitch demands because he hasn’t ever encountered a problem he hasn’t tried to solve. 

 

“I...I don’t know. I haven’t....” Connor starts to say but is cut off by Mitch. 

 

“Well, that’s dumb.”

 

“Mitchy,” Connor whines and looks at Auston for backup but the fucker just shrugs, as if his boyfriend’s antics are somehow  _ Connor’s _ fault. 

 

Connor needs some better friends. 

 

\-----

 

Here’s the thing. Connor had played against Freddie in the U18 tournament. It was held in Denmark, and Connor had scored his first goal of the tournament against him, and instead of being an asshole like Connor had feared he would be when they ran into each other at a party later, Freddie had congratulated him sincerely, and well....who could really blame Connor for falling for  _ that _ . 

 

They had a great summer, filled with laughter and love and everything in between, but Connor was sixteen and he hadn’t know what to do with everything he was feeling. And so they had...parted ways, as friends. Or so he tells himself because neither had made any attempt to talk to the other after the fact and Connor tells himself it wasn’t because he couldn’t handle having Freddie in his life as anything other than what he had meant to him, and well...that’s just a path he doesn’t want to go down. 

 

So when Mitch asks if Connor will go back, the simple answer would’ve been of course, but there’s not a single thing that’s simple about this and isn’t that the damn story of his life. 

 

\-----

 

In the end, he does end up going back because what’s self control anyway. 

 

“Hey,” Freddie greets him with a smile that lights up his entire face and one that, unfortunately for Connor, sets his entire heart on fire. “Fancy seeing you here again.”

 

“Yeah, I....” Connor looks around, trying to find an excuse for being back that doesn’t involve being as transparent as he thinks he already is, and lands on one that’ll have him facepalming into eternity. “I wanted to take the classes?”

 

He had done some digging on the internet before coming back, trying to find something, anything about why he had found Freddie in Toronto, in a bakery of all places, and while he had found nothing that would answer his questions, he did learn that Frederik’s Pastries gave baking classes. Information that he never thought he’d actually use. 

 

“The...baking ones?” Freddie asks, confused, but still smiling at him like he wants to put Connor at ease and damn if he doesn’t nod in agreement. 

 

\-----

 

Connor realized that there were a few problems with his plan, not that he knew what he was  _ planning _ for:

 

1\. The classes were taught one on one. ( _ RIP Brownie _ , Mitch had sent in their group chat when Connor messaged them panicking after said realization. “One  _ on  _ one, eh” was Auston’s addition. He  _ really _ needed to get on with finding those better friends.

 

2\. Connor wasn’t prepared, like  _ at all _ , to listen to Freddie talk about Chocolate and Cake and Pastries and how to  _ handle _ dough gently or stir the cream  _ just so _ . (“I bet he knows how to handle other things gently too,” Willy this time.)

 

So in conclusion, Connor hecked right up and had not a clue how to handle any of it, least of all all the feelings that came flooding back the more he interacted with Freddie. 

 

\-----

 

“Did you know Eclairs mean Lightning?” Freddie asks, once they divide the pastry dough in two so Connor could learn how to pipe it. He was still trying not to cringe at the scrambled egg he had made out of his own pastry dough. 

 

“Oh?” Connor says, trying to concentrate on piping perfect oblongs. 

 

“Speaking of Lightning, I saw your game against them last night,” Freddie continues in a casual tone, as if hockey wasn’t a subject they had both ignored diligently until then. “Nice goal, by the way.”

 

Connor stops piping because ruining one thing a day is one too many and he doesn’t have the required dexterity to pipe and have a crisis at the same time, hockey player or not. 

 

“You watched my game?” he asks, and immediately wants to hit himself in the face because hadn’t Freddie  _ literally _ said that just a moment ago?

 

“I watch all your games,” Freddie replies matter of factly, looking at him with a small smile. Honestly, the smile should be illegal in all provinces it was so deadly. 

 

“I...thank you,” Connor replies stupidly because he doesn’t have a clue where to go from there. 

 

“You don’t have to avoid talking about hockey, you know,” Freddie says, looking away and continuing on with his perfectly piped eclairs. “I made a choice. One that was hard, yes, but I love what I do and I wouldn’t give it up for anything.”

 

From what Connor could gather, not too long after that tournament, Freddie had given up playing hockey professionally. There was an injury that didn’t get much coverage because if it wasn’t Canada, it doesn’t matter, Connor thinks bitterly. And Freddie’s statement just then cements the fact that it wasn’t entirely voluntary, which went against everything Connor was hoping for, for Freddie’s sake. 

 

“It’s a part of who you are,” Freddie continues. “A important part, and well...I am a big fan of every part of you.”

 

Connor could’ve sworn it wasn’t possible to fall any more deeply in love with a person but well, he should probably get used to being proven wrong. 

 

\-----

 

Baking classes turn into take-out dinners and coffee dates, long conversations and inside jokes, and Connor remembers just why he had fallen so hard, so quick. His teammates complain about gaining weight from the desserts he keeps bringing in and threaten to fine him everytime he gushes about Freddie’s baking prowess in the locker room, but he can tell they are happy for him. 

 

It helps that he is no longer a sixteen year old, feeling awkward in his own body and mind, not knowing how to deal with emotions that feel too big for him to handle. 

 

It feels...it feels like coming home. And Connor thinks that’s something worth fighting for. 

 

\-----

 

They were making Tiramisu today. 

 

Because fuck him and his internal crisis, right? (Honestly, that’s half the problem, he wishes Freddie  _ would _ .)

 

Having Freddie talk about the origins of Tiramisu and how it was an aphrodisiac invented in the  _ brothels of Treviso _ , is  _ a lot more than Connor can handle, god fucking dammit.  _

 

“It’s imperative that you steep your own espresso or at least buy a good grade of it from a trusted cafe,” Freddie goes on, like he didn’t just ruin Connor’s entire life by explaining how in its original form, Tiramisu was called Sbatudìn, which roughly translated to “gimme a shake, bang me.”  _ He was going to pass out. _

 

“None of this Timmie’s bullshit, do you hear me?” Freddie continues heatedly. 

 

“Uhuh,” Connor says and clears his throat to regain some sort of composure. 

 

Freddie  _ has  _ to know what he’s doing, right? 

 

That’s the thought that gives Connor a boost of adrenaline, just enough that he feels himself about to do something stupid, but not _so much_ that he isn’t aware that his plan isn’t stupid.  

 

Now maybe he should blame Babs for drilling it into his head to always take his shot, and that was a sentence he would never utter out-loud lest he be benched into eternity, but he sees Freddie showing him how to mix the egg-whites into the cream and decides...to hell with everything. 

 

“You know...the eggs...they were together and then we separated them and now they’re together again,” he sees Freddie pause out of the corner of his eyes and he has half a mind to look up and see what expression is on his face because in any other circumstances, and if it were anyone else who was standing in Connor’s shoes, Connor would probably find this entertaining as hell, but well...“But they’ve grown...and changed, you know? Character development.”

 

And then he does look up and he could swear he had a point, but the way Freddie’s looking at him, he’d be hard pressed to find what the hell he had meant to say when he started this dissertation on Tiramisu cream. 

 

“I mean...what I mean is...” he stutters, “We’re eggs.”

 

He sees a small dip form in between Freddie’s eyebrows, the one he gets when his entire focus is trained on something he’s trying to solve, and then...and then, well, he bursts out laughing. It’s a guffaw that has him gasping for breaths and holding onto the counter and Connor can feel himself go tomato red, and if anyone knows anything about gingers it’s that red  _ really _ isn’t their color. 

 

“We’re....” Freddie starts and has to stop because he’s apparently not done laughing at Connor. Fine,  _ that’s just fine. _ “We’re....eggs? Oh, Connor...”

 

“Oh my god,” Connor mutters and tries to get the apron off so that he can get the hell out of there, but a hand on his arm stops him. 

 

“I...” Freddie starts and pauses, a small smile still lingering on his face, and seeing him be anything other than hundred percent confident is so new that it stops Connor in his tracks, the half untied apron hanging off his hand. “Yes.”

 

“Yes?” Connor blinks.  _ What were they talking about again? _

 

“Yes...let’s be...together again?” He says it like it’s a question and Connor thinks he should be mad about something because he’s pretty sure he’s being made fun of but the pounding of his heart and the entirely new kind of flush that is spreading over him take precedence over anything else and he feels himself breaking out into a dumb smile. 

 

“Are you saying we should make some cr...”

 

“Oh my god, shut up,” Freddie says and pulls him into a kiss. 

 

Objectively, it’s a bad kiss. Their teeth knock together, and they are both too enthusiastic for it to feel anything resembling smooth but it’s Freddie, and Connor feels like he has been waiting for this moment for what feels like the better half of the decade and fuck if he doesn’t enjoy every second of it. 

 

\-----

 

They serve Tiramisu at their wedding reception and Connor wants to say he’s mad at Freddie for picking it, but, well...saying he feels anything other than hopelessly in love would be a lie. 

 

\-----

**Author's Note:**

> Who knew Tiramisu was *so* scandulous. This was inspired by a weekend of thwarted plans of me attempting to consume Tiramisu and knowing what I know about it now, it's even sadder.


End file.
